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The presidential ballot Sunday, December 23, has been condemned by the opposition as a Soviet-style one-man contest, while the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe told BosNewsLife that very few were allowed to monitor the election.
As polling stations closed in the isolated Central Asian state, observers said the outcome appeared to be a forgone conclusion with 69-year-old Karimov expected to be re-elected as Uzbekistan’s president for a new seven-year term.
He has been running against three virtual unknowns representing pro-government groups. They have not explicitly asked the ex-Soviet republic’s 28-million people to vote for them in the election. Human-rights watchers say that is no surprise in a country where authorities have been cracking down on voices of dissent since gaining independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.
CRITICAL JOURNALISTS
Before the election, allies of the president allegedly cracked down on critical journalists, including 26-year old Alisher Saipov, an independent reporter who contributed to the US-funded Voice of America (VOA) network and other media.
Saipov was shot and killed in neighboring Kirgizstan October 24, leaving behind his wife and infant daughter. In a recent interview, Saipov had expressed concern that he was being trailed by what he believed were Uzbek security agents. However he also said: "Freedom does not know borders. Here, in our Uzbekistan the government tries to control the borders, with the help of Tajik and Kyrgyz colleagues. Nevertheless all kind of ideas are spreading here. Democratic as well as extremist and radical ideas."
Human-rights groups and Western diplomats also say they are increasingly concerned about thousands of prisoners across the country who have been detained because of the political or religious views, amid reports of torture. Devoted Christians are among those targeted by the government, as the spread of Christianity is apparently seen as a threat to Karimov’s leadership and ideology, BosNewsLife learned.
This month news emerged that Pastor Nikolai Zulfikarov has been sentenced to two years "correctional labor" for "teaching religious doctrines without special religious education and without permission from a central organ of administration of a religious organization, as well as teaching religion privately".
PAYING FINE
Zulfikarov will also have to pay 20 percent of his earnings to the state for the next two years for leading a five member unregistered Baptist church in the Khalkabad area near the city of Pap, said Human rights group Forum 18 which closely monitored the case.
Asked if it is illegal to be a religious believer in Uzbekistan, Judge Bakhrom Batyrov reportedly said that laws of Uzbekistan prohibit people worshipping and praying together without being legally registered.
"This is the latest sentence against a member of one of Uzbekistan’s religious minorities, which along with the majority Muslim community continue to be put under severe official pressure," Forum 18 said, adding that over 100 religious communities are thought to have tried unsuccessfully to gain registration.
Protestant churches have calculated that 38 of their congregations were closed down by the state between 2000 and 2006, as part of a wider, sometimes bloody, security crackdown on groups deemed dangerous for the government.
BLOODIEST INCIDENT
In one of the bloodiest known incidents in 2005, witnesses said hundreds of people were killed when troops opened fire on an anti-government demonstration in the town of Andijan. Officials blamed the unrest on Islamist rebels and the government put the death toll at 187, saying most of the dead were terrorists or security forces.
A spokeswoman for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, Urdur Gunnarsdottir, suggested to BosNewsLife before the poll that election observers would try to visit Andijan. But she said authorities allowed less than two dozen OSCE observers to monitor the ballot. "We have a limited, a very limited mission here, just 21 people. There are many reasons. One of them is that this is a very limited competition. But mainly also we received visas very late and we are simply not able to send a full-fledged mission on a very short notice. We need notice, and we did not get that," she said, speaking by telephone from the capital Tashkent.
The state news agency reported election authorities announced a nearly 80-percent turnout four hours before the end of voting. Final results were expected Monday, December 24.
No Uzbekistan election since the breakup of the Soviet Union has been declared free and fair by the West. Analysts say the autocratic style of President Karimov is one of the main reasons why Uzbekistan has failed to prosper, despite its massive gas and cotton riches. (NEWSWATCH covers hard hitting news developments impacting the Church and/or compassionate professionals. Part of this BosNewsLife news story also airs on the Voice of America (VOA) network via www.voanews.com. Bos report – Download MP3 (612k) Listen to Bos report ).
